persons who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, described themselves as signing it, "as with halters about their necks." If there were grounds for this remark in 1776, when the cause had become so much more general, how much greater was the hazard, when the battle of Bunker Hill was fought!

These considerations constituted, to enlarged and liberal minds, the moral sublimity of the occasion; while, to the outward senses, the movement of armies, the roar of artillery, the brilliancy of the reflection of a summer's sun, from the burnished armour of the British columns, and the flames of a burning town, made up a scene of extraordinary grandeur.

N. A. REVIEW.

CONDUCT OF GENERAL LAFAYETTE, IN THE EARLY PART OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

LAFAYETTE was, also, a prominent member of the States-General, which met in 1789, and assumed the name of the National Assembly. He proposed, in this body, a declaration of rights not unlike our own, and it was under his influence, and while he was, for this very purpose, in the chair, that a decree was passed on the night of the 13th and 14th of July, at the moment the Bastile was falling before the cannon of the populace, which provided for the responsibility of ministers, and thus furnished one of the most important elements of a representative monarchy. Two days afterwards, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the national guards of Paris, and thus was placed at the head of what was intended to be made,

when it should be carried into all the departments, the effective military power of the realm, and what, under his wise management, soon became such.

His great military command, and his still greater personal influence, now brought him constantly in contact with the court and the throne. His position, therefore, was extremely delicate and difficult, especially as the popular party in Paris, of which he was not so much the head, as the idol, was already in a state of perilous excitement, and atrocious violences were beginning to be committed The abhorrence of the queen was almost universal, and was excessive to a degree of which we can now have no just idea.

The circumstance that the court lived at Versailles, sixteen miles from Paris, and that the session of the national assembly was held there, was another source of jealousy, irritation, and hatred, on the part of the capital. The people of Paris, therefore, as a sign of opposition, had mounted their municipal cockade, of blue and red, whose effects were already becoming alarming. Lafay ette, who was anxious about the consequences of such a marked division, and who knew how important are small means of conciliation, added to it, on the 26th of July, the white of the royal cockade, and as he placed it in his own hat, amidst the acclamations of the multitude, prophesied that it "would go round the world;" a prediction which is already more than half accomplished, since the tricoloured cockade has been used for the ensign of emancipation in Spain, in Naples, in some parts of South America, and in Greece.

Still, however, the tendency of every thing was to confusion and violence. The troubles of the

times, too, rather than a positive want of the means of subsistence, had brought on a famine in the capital; and the populace of the Fauxbourgs, the most degraded certainly in France, having assembled and armed themselves, determined to go to Versailles; the greater part, with a blind desire for vengeance on the royal family, but others, only with the purpose of bringing the king from Versailles, and forcing him to reside in the more ancient but scarcely habitable palace of the Thuilleries, in the midst of Paris.

The national guards clamoured to accompany this savage multitude; Lafayette opposed their inclination; the municipality of Paris hesitated, but supported it; he resisted nearly the whole of the 5th of October, while the road to Versailles was already thronged with an exasperated mob, of above an hundred thousand ferocious men and women, until, at last, finding the multitude were armed, and even had cannon, he asked and received an order to march, from the competent authority, and set off at four o'clock in the afternoon, as one going to a post of imminent danger, which it had clearly become his duty to occupy.

He arrived at Versailles at ten o'clock at night, after having been on horseback from before day. light in the morning, and having made, during the whole interval, both at Paris and on the road, incredible exertions to control the multitude, and calm the soldiers. "The Marquis de Lafayette at last entered the Château," says Madame de Staël, "and passing through the apartment where we were, went to the king. We all pressed round him, as if he were the master of events, and yet the popular party was already more powerful than its chief, and principles were yielding to factions,

or rather were beginning to serve only as their pretext."

"M. de Lafayette's manner was perfectly calm; nobody ever saw it otherwise; but his delicacy suffered from the importance of the part he was called to act. He asked for the interior posts of the château, in order that he might insure their safety. Only the outer posts were granted to him." This refusal was not disrespectful to him, who made the request. It was given, simply because the etiquette of the court reserved the guard of the royal person, and family, to another body of men. Lafayette, therefore, answered for the national guards, and for the posts committed to them; but he could answer for no more ;* and his pledge was faithfully and desperately redeemed.

Between two and three o'clock, the queen and the royal family went to bed. Lafayette, too, slept after the great fatigues of this fearful day. At half-past four, a portion of the populace made their way into the palace by an obscure, interior passage, which had been overlooked, and which was not in that part of the château intrusted to Lafayette. They were evidently led by persons who well knew the secret avenues.

Mirabeau's name was afterwards strangely compromised in it, and the form of the infamous Duke of Orleans was repeatedly recognized on the great staircase, pointing the assassins the way to the queen's chamber. They easily found it. Two of her guards were cut down in an instant; and she

* So completely were all persons unsuspicious of any immediate danger, that the guards of the interior posts were nowhere increased; and not the slightest change was made in the customary arrangements, except what was made at the solicitation of Lafayette.

made her escape almost naked. Lafayette immediately rushed in with the national troops, protected the guards from the brutal populace, and saved the lives of the royal family, which had so nearly been sacrificed to the etiquette of the monarchy,

The day dawned, as this fearful scene of guilt and bloodshed was passing in the magnificent palace, whose construction had exhausted the revenues of Louis XIV., and which, for a century, had been the most splendid residence in Europe. As soon as it was light, the same furious multitude filled the vast space, which, from the rich materials of which it is formed, passes under the name of the court of marble. They called upon the king, in tones not to be mistaken, to go to Paris; and they called for the queen, who had but just escaped from their daggers, to come out upon the balcony.

66

The king, after a short consultation with his ministers, announced his intention to set out for the capital; but Lafayette was afraid to trust the queen in the midst of the bloodthirsty multitude. He went to her, therefore, with respectful hesitation, and asked her if it were her purpose to accompany the king to Paris. Yes," she replied, 'although I am aware of the danger." "Are you positively determined?" "Yes, sir." " "Condescend, then, to go out upon the balcony, and suffer me to attend you." "Without the king ?"-she replied, hesitating "have you observed the threats?" "Yes, madam, I have; but dare to trust me."

66

He led her out upon the balcony. It was a moment of great responsibility, and great delicacy; but nothing, he felt assured, could be so dangerous as to permit her to set out for Paris, surrounded by that multitude, unless its feelings could be changed. The agitation, the tumult, the cries